Hearing aid with protection against unintentional operation

Abstract

A hearing aid has protection against unintentional operation. The protection against unintentional operation is provided for the purpose of suppressing erroneous, mistaken or unintentional user inputs for changing settings of a hearing aid. The hearing aid contains signal-processing electronics arranged in a housing and an operating element actuated manually, arranged externally on the housing. A locking arrangement is configured to lock the operating element in respect of manual actuation, and an unlocking arrangement is configured to deactivate the locking arrangement. The unlocking arrangement contains at least two sensors actuated manually, which are arranged spatially separate from one another on the housing. The unlocking arrangement deactivates the locking arrangement only during and/or in a limited time period following simultaneous manual actuation of the sensors. The spatially separate arrangement of the sensors can suppress an accidental undesired actuation.

1 . A hearing aid, comprising:
 a housing;   signal-processing electronics disposed in said housing;   an operating element to be actuated manually, disposed externally on said housing;   a locking configuration configured to lock said operating element in respect of manual actuation; and   an unlocking configuration configured to deactivate said locking configuration, said unlocking configuration having at least two sensors to be actuated manually, which are disposed spatially separate from one another on said housing, and said unlocking configuration deactivates said locking configuration one of only during simultaneous manual actuation of said sensors and during simultaneous manual actuation of said sensors and during a limited time period following the actuation of said sensors.   
     
     
         2 . The hearing aid according to  claim 1 , wherein said locking configuration locks said operating element mechanically. 
     
     
         3 . The hearing aid according to  claim 2 , wherein said unlocking configuration deactivates said locking configuration mechanically, and said sensors are actuated manually by one of pressing, sliding and tipping. 
     
     
         4 . The hearing aid according to  claim 1 , wherein said locking configuration locks said operating element electronically. 
     
     
         5 . The hearing aid according to  claim 4 , wherein said unlocking configuration deactivates said locking configuration electronically, and said sensors are electronic sensors. 
     
     
         6 . The hearing aid according to  claim 5 , wherein said sensors are selected from the group consisting of pressure sensors, heat sensors, capacitive sensors, inductive sensors, resistive sensors and optical sensors. 
     
     
         7 . The hearing aid according to  claim 1 , wherein said operating element is selected from the group consisting of on/off switches and volume controllers.